


When Subtlety's Not Your Thing

by PinkPandorafrog



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Maybe A Little Plot, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4415999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkPandorafrog/pseuds/PinkPandorafrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James has been spending a lot of time in Jane's lab lately. Not that she minds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Subtlety's Not Your Thing

Jane sighed, twisting her pen back and forth between her finger and thumb so that it tapped against the thick pad of paper in front of her. The paper was already covered in notes, mostly in her writing, but some in Darcy's as well. Darcy had taken off a long time ago, gone off to cuddle down with her boyfriends for the night. Not that Jane could really blame her. Not that Darcy really worked for her anymore, either, but she'd still show up and help a few days a week.

Her elbow went against the smooth top of her desk, forehead resting in her palm. She was so close to figuring this out, but it had been eluding her for two-and-a-half weeks. Maybe she should touch base with Bruce again. Or Tony. But Bruce didn't argue as much as Tony did, his approach was a lot friendlier.

She heard the door open and shut, just barely audible, but her lab was otherwise silent. Maybe she needed some music. Maybe that would help.

A paper bag was set down in front of her, carefully to the side of her notepad, and she looked up to see James' blue eyes through a shock of dark hair that had fallen in front of her face. His hand was extending towards her, offering a pair of chopsticks. “Thank you,” she told him, taking them. “You didn't have to get me dinner.” _Again_ , she silently amended. This made the third time this week. Or fourth, maybe?

He smiled, just a little. She liked his smile, how it lit up his face. Not the cheesy thing he put on for the cameras, but the genuine smile that was entirely too rare. “No. But you haven't eaten yet, have you?” There was none of the rebuke that would be in Darcy's voice, it was just a statement of fact. He knew she hadn't eaten yet.

She opened up the paper bag, pulling out the mix of beef and broccoli that was the absolute best in town and setting it on the desk beside her notepad.. The paper wrapper was taken off of her chopsticks, and she pulled them apart before tucking eagerly into the food. She didn't realize how hungry she'd gotten until she started eating. How long ago was lunch? “What time is it?”

James was pulling over the office chair that Darcy usually used when he was in there, adjusting it higher for his longer legs. “Ten. Thirty.” He sat down beside her and pulled his own food out of the bag, along with the plastic fork they'd put in there for him. He had two of the round foil containers, enhanced metabolism.

“Oh, shit!” Jane went to push the food away, but his hand came out, keeping it exactly where it was. She had to stop pushing or she'd bend it against his hand, spilling her food all over her work. “James...”

He merely looked at her, the smile a little bit bigger than it had been. “Yes?” Like he didn't know exactly what he was doing.

“I need to-”

“Eat. You need to eat.” He just sat there, one eyebrow raised just slightly in challenge until she dropped her hand away, sighing as she sat back against her chair. It was probably too late anyway. And she really did need to eat, she reasoned as she picked her chopsticks up and brought another piece of broccoli towards her mouth.

His eyes stayed on her for another couple of moments like he was making sure she was actually going to sit there and eat, before turning his attention away and taking the covers off of his own food.

They ate together in silence, but it was a comfortable silence. And when she was done, Jane neatly put the cover back over her food, getting up out of her chair so she could take it over to the fridge. The leftovers would be good for lunch tomorrow.

“I'll get it,” James told her, and she sat back down. _He_ had no leftovers, but he got up to put his own empty containers in the garbage, putting hers on the top shelf of the mini-fridge before making his way back over. Instead of sitting down again, he held out his hand.

She eyed it for a second, eyebrow raised in question, before looking up at his face. The smile was back, eyes crinkled at the corners. “I need to get back to work.” She'd already missed the 22:27 window, but there would be another opportunity coming at 01:56, and now she'd have more time to get everything organized.

He, apparently, was completely okay with standing there with his hand in her face for the rest of the night. She couldn't get any work done with it there, it was pretty much blocking her entire notepad, so she sighed and took it. Immediately he pulled her to her feet until she was pressed against his body. “Oh!” she exclaimed, unable to help the smile that broke across her face as his other hand came around to settle in the small of her back.

They were dancing, apparently. Jane was just about to say something about the lack of music, but just then, soft music came over the speakers in the ceiling. It sounded vaguely familiar, probably something Darcy had made her listen to, and she rested her free hand against his shoulder and let him move her away from the desk.

If there was one thing James knew how to do, it was dance. He moved them effortlessly around the open floorspace of her lab, pausing to twirl her occasionally before pulling her back against him. He didn't even seem to mind when she stepped on his foot once. She gave an embarrassed laugh and apologized, but he brushed it aside. “Little thing like you, I hardly felt it.” He spun her again, then brought her back to dip her low to the floor. Jane laughed outright, grabbing at his shoulder as he pulled her upright again. He winked as he pulled her close for a second, then just let her go as the music faded away. Apparently he'd just wanted a dance before letting her get back to work.

Jane was still smiling when she sat back down to her notes, picking up her pen again as she stared at the tiny letters and numbers on the blue-lined paper.

This time he retook his seat beside her, pulling out his e-Reader and resting it against the table in front of him. This was her favorite thing to do, if she was going to be perfectly honest. Quiet evenings spent while she worked away and he sat there and read or watched movies, or whatever it was he was doing every night. And he really was there every night. Most nights, anyway, unless one of the others dragged him out, or he was working. But he preferred to spend quiet nights in, or so he'd told her.

After a while, she could feel her eyes getting heavy. She put her arm out straight in front of her, stretched out across the desk and over the top of her work. Her eyes dropped closed as she rested her head against her upper arm. She wasn't going to _sleep_ , she was just going to rest her eyes for a second while she tried to figure this out.

 

* * *

 

Jane awoke with a start, completely disoriented as she sat straight up. She wasn't in the chair at her desk anymore, she was...

On the couch at the side of her lab. Her feet were stretched out along the cushions, the worn yellow and purple afghan was pulled up to her chin, and she was resting against- “James?” She could feel the hard thigh muscles against her lower back, a hand still lingering across her waist.

“Hmm?” He sounded a little sleepy, but she hadn't woken him up. Or at least, quietly whispering his name hadn't woken him up.

It was dark in her lab. All of the lights were off, the only illumination provided by the glow of the tiny lights on her equipment. “What time is it?”

The pale green light from his watch face glowed briefly in the dark. “Three.”

Sighing, Jane settled back against him. She'd missed the window again, and now she'd have to wait until the next night. “Dammit.” She heard the amused huff in the darkness, probably at her “language,” and she rolled her eyes. “It's just so frustrating. I needed to be up for-”

“I know.” And he sounded actually like he did know. She felt his hand smoothing over her hair- which was somehow out of the ponytail she'd had it in. Which kind of begged the question, why didn't he wake her up... “Take a nap later so you can stay up tomorrow night.”

Jane kind of... resented sleep. It was the only time that she couldn't get any work done, and since most of what she needed happened at _night_ , sleep had a tendency to get in the way. And she was finding she couldn't stay up fueled by coffee and sugar like she used to. “Yeah. But then...” Sleeping during the day got in the way of research and data entry, and...

“You need a new intern.” His hand was still splayed across her stomach, just under her navel, and James pulled until she let herself rest back against him again.

“I guess.” She'd tried that. But she'd barely gotten through the interview process with three applicants before she'd realized that most of them were just excited about working so close to the Avengers and didn't give two shits about working for a Nobel candidate, let alone actually caring about her work.

But then she realized she was actually resting against him, cuddled up under the afghan. They were friends, they spent time together and he brought her dinner, they didn't... “Oh shit, James. I'm sorry, I'll...” She pushed against him, but his hand dug in, not letting her move.

“No, I like you right where you are. Unless you want to get up?”

Jane thought about it for a moment. She really, really didn't want to get up. She wanted to stay right where she was, James' arm around her. The hand moving over her hair fell away, and she felt him shift, settling down again. She lay back against him, her head against his chest where it had been, and closed her eyes.

She tried to sleep, she really did. But her mind kept moving, chasing after the elusive part of her research. And James smelled really good, like spice and that fresh rain smell she missed from the desert... “Oh, no.”

“What's wrong?” He didn't sound like he was having any better luck with sleep than she was.

“Nothing?” That was probably the least convincing thing she could have said. “I'm just not sleeping. My mind isn't...”

There was a few beats of silence. “I could help.” That was the same flirtatious tone he used with the media. Only... Only it wasn't. It was different, somehow, genuine. The hollow undertone was missing. His hand shifted to the side of her waist, the other one on the other side, and he pulled her easily back until she was sitting across his thighs, her back against the armrest on his other side. She couldn't really see him, he was just a dark shape beside her in the night.

His arm went behind her shoulders and he moved into her, pressing her backwards. Jane could feel his breath against her cheek, the slight rasp of his fingers tracing over the side of her face and down along neck. She shivered at the slight roughness of his callused fingertips, feeling his amused huff in a puff of warm air against her skin. His hand didn't stop, though, continuing down over the collar of her t-shirt, down over her chest, along the side of her breast until it came to rest along her ribs. “I've been tryin' to get ya like this for a couple weeks now.” The Brooklyn was seeping back into his voice, his tone slightly husky. “But subtle's not really your thing.”

She grinned into the darkness, shaking her head a little. “That's what I've been told.” She felt his lips against her cheek, moving down until they caught on the underside of her jaw. Jane sighed, leaning her head over to give him no room, and almost immediately his mouth fastened over the pulse point at the side of her throat, tongue flicking against her skin.

He lifted away after just a second, though. “Your heart's beatin' fast.”

She nodded, realizing after the fact that she didn't know if he'd be able to see the motion or not. “Yeah. Yes.”

“You tell me if I need to stop.” She nodded again, and he must have seen her, because his lips fell against her skin again, making a hot path down to her shoulder. Her hands moved up over his broad chest and onto his shoulders, tentative at first, but then a little more sure when he mouthed at the hollow at the base of her throat. He couldn't get much lower, though, not without taking off her shirt. That didn't seem to bother him, instead he moved back up, his mouth mapping out the delicate skin of her neck. He made a pleased-sounding noise when he found the spot just under her ear that made her fingers dig into his shoulders, and he spent his time there licking and sucking until she was gasping and moving against him.

Her hands closed in the shoulders of his shirt and she tugged, temporarily unable to articulate that she needed it _off_. But he took the hint, pulling back enough to let her pull it over his head and drop it on the floor beside the couch. He'd just been in his undershirt, apparently, and his skin was warm under her fingers, the muscles forming rigid lines over his torso.

The skin where his prosthetic met his chest was rough, twisted, and she traced her fingers along the ridge where metal met flesh. “Is this... Okay?” James was a little self-conscious about his prosthetic, she didn't want to offend him.

“You touch me however you want.” There was enough suggestion in his voice that Jane was glad he couldn't see her blush in the darkness. She didn't stop, though, her fingers tracing out the planes of his chest and abdomen.

He squirmed a little when her fingers dug in along the side of his ribs, so she did it again. “That's trouble,” he warned her, laughter in his voice.

“You said I could touch you however I want, though.” She did it one more time.

One second she was sitting across his thighs, bent back against his arm, the next she was flat on her back on the couch. James was on his knees between her legs, lowering himself against her. She couldn't tickle him again, the angle was all wrong, but it somehow didn't seem right that all of that glorious muscle was trapped away from her on the other side of her shirt. “I didn't say there wouldn't be any consequences.”

She was grinning again, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. “I can't get my shirt off with you on top of me like that, though.”

He stilled, and for a second she was worried that she'd been a bit _too_ forward, but his next words reassured her. “I can help.” His solid body eased off of her again, one hand slipped into her lower back to raise her into a sitting position as well. He held her steady as Jane worked off her t-shirt as well, dropping it on the floor after his. Her flannel shirt had disappeared somewhere after she'd fallen asleep, and she wasn't missing it at all.

He lowered her gently to the couch again, the upholstery rough against her back. His large hands settled around her hips, just above the waist of her jeans, resting there for just a second before sliding slowly up over her sides firmly enough that he wasn't tickling her. She could feel his fingers bump along her ribs, pausing when he got to the band of her bra.

He waited there for a moment, and she got the sense that he was looking at her in the darkness. “It undoes at the front, there's a clasp there,” she offered, hoping he wasn't stalling because he just didn't want to go further.

The tip of one blunt finger ticked up along the edge of the lacy fabric, moving to where it was hooked together between her breasts. One deft flick had it falling open, and Jane laughed a little in disbelief. The feel of his open palm moving up over her breast to settle against it, though, had her mirth dying in her throat.

He kneaded a little before his fingers settled directly against her nipple, gently rolling it between his finger and thumb until it stiffened into a tight bud. Jane let out a long sigh, her arms draped up over the arm of the couch behind her, eyes drifting shut.

The couch cushion shifted under her legs, and she felt James moving back a little. The ends of his dark hair tickled tantalizingly across her other breast for just a moment before his lips brushed against its inner curve. He seemed to be able to see better than she could in the dark, and his mouth spiraled in until his full lower lip brushed against her other taut nipple.

“James...” came out on another long sigh. She reached for him, her fingers gently skimming over his head before settling against the hard lines of his shoulders. Her hands moved over his shoulders and what she could reach of his back while his mouth worked against her breast, nipping and sucking until she was writhing beneath him.

His mouth left her, coming away completely before he pressed a kiss to the hollow between her breasts. He didn't stay there, though, his lips made a hot path down over the gentle curve of her stomach until the barest of his edge caught against the skin just above the button on her jeans.

His fingers stopped their exquisite teasing, and then he was undoing her jeans. Jane lifted her hips to let him pull her pants, and the blue cotton panties underneath, down over her thighs. He lifted each leg one at a time to free them from her pants, and then she was basically completely naked under him. He shifted back a little more, and then James was pressing his lips against the inside of her knee, his hand warm against the underside of her thigh as he held her leg slightly lifted off the couch.

Wet, slightly sucking kisses moved up the length of her thigh until his nose nuzzled into the crease where her thigh met her body. He paused there a moment before continuing his path inwards. He nosed between her labia for a moment before placing a gentle kiss just above the seam of her center.

Her hands were tangled in his hair, breath held as she waited... Eventually his tongue flicked against her clit, and Jane gasped, fingers tightening their grip, though she was careful not to pull.

She felt him settle down against her, the breadth of his shoulders pushing her thighs apart. It was easier to slip the leg on the inside couch up over his left shoulder, and he hummed in seeming approval when her heel settled gently against his back.

There was another long lick against the sensitive bead of nerves before he moved his tongue against her in earnest, the tip flicking back and forth. He varied his speed and pressure until he did something that made her gasp, tugging a little on her handful of hair. He hummed again, the noise vibrating against her skin, and he did _that_ over and over, his tongue moving against her until she could hardly catch her breath.

Her pleasure coiled tighter and tighter at the base of her spine, her heel sliding across his back as he slipped his hand under her backside to lift her up against him. She could feel the scrape of his stubble against the delicate flesh, against the inside of her thigh where it rode against his cheek. “James!” was almost a whine, her voice high and broken.

His lips locked around her clit, sucking at it as his tongue moved over her, and that was all it took to send her spinning into ecstasy, her hips rocking up into his face.

James coaxed her through her orgasm, easing away before the dance of his tongue became too much. She heard him wipe his face off against his arm, the rasp of his facial hair scraping against his skin. He was moving again, straightening on his knees between her legs for a long moment, and Jane took that opportunity to free herself from her bra and drop it on the floor. She heard the distinctive foil of a condom wrapper, and then his arm came down on the cushion to brace beside her head as he lowered himself over her.

She needed no encouragement to reach down, feeling for the latex-wrapped erection where it bobbed thick between his legs, guiding him to where she needed him. Her legs wrapped up around him, pulling him in towards her. She felt the slow glide of his cock moving deep inside her, her arms winding around his neck until his chest was resting against her breasts.

“Fuck,” came out almost a groan. He slid home, his skin hot where it pressed against hers, though clearly he wasn't putting all of his weight on her. “Next time we're doin' this with the lights on.”

A giggle bubbled up in her throat, but abruptly stopped when he rolled his hips into her, breaking off into another gasp. She pushed her hips to meet him, digging her heels into his ass to pull him closer.

James was moving, snapping his hips quickly into her. She flexed up to meet him stroke for stroke, urging him faster with the quick circle of her hips. He growled something low and indistinct, his free hand slipping between them until his thumb was flicking over her clit.

“James!” she cried, fingers raking across his shoulders as he fucked her roughly, almost desperately. “James- _oh_!” Her teeth clamped down over his shoulder in an effort to keep herself from yelling the lab down around them. He growled again, driving into her, the tip of his thumb making her start clenching around him.

“Let me hear you, baby-doll,” he muttered thickly, and her head fell back against the couch cushion.

“James-” Her body strained towards him, chasing the edge that was just out of reach. “James- _James_!” She spasmed around him, legs shaking as she came.

His hand dropped away from her clit, instead closing over the back of her thigh and bringing her leg up over his shoulder. Suddenly it was _deeper_ , every thrust into her cunt dragged the head of his cock over her g-spot. Her teeth sank into his shoulder again, mewling sounds escaping through her nose.

“Fuck!” he grunted. Jane could feel his rhythm starting to get uneven, pushing deeper and not pulling back as much, and then he stiffened over her for a moment of eternity before he eased her leg off of his shoulder, resting it gently against the couch.

He slumped down over her, burying his face in her neck. Clearly, he still wasn't resting his entire body weight against her, and it wasn't long before his hands slid under her back, pulling her up until they were side-by-side on the couch, facing each other.

“Your mind a little more still?” James asked, his lips moving against the hair hanging across her forehead.

“I definitely think I could sleep now.” She was smiling, eyes closed as she snuggled in against his chest.

He moved a little, enough to get rid of the condom somehow, then grab the afghan from where it had been resting against the back of the couch and drape it over them. “Where'd you learn to move your hips like that, anyway?”

She could feel her cheeks getting hot. After what they'd just done, _this_ was what made her blush. “I bellydance.” No one knew. Well, Darcy knew. But no one else.

“My girl bellydances? I am one lucky son of bitch.” She _knew_ the possessive language should have bothered her, but it... Didn't, somehow. She nestled against him, her mind definitely still enough to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The next time Jane woke up, it was to her phone buzzing insistently from the floor beside the couch. She was still tucked up against James, though sometime in the night she'd turned over so that they were spooned together. She let her arm drop down over the side of the couch and groped in their discarded clothing until she came out with her phone. Darcy had sent her a text message, and she squinted in the morning light to read it.

 _Check your background_.

Jane swiped into her phone, and saw a picture that had _obviously_ been taken that morning, her head resting against a fold of the afghan over James' upper arm, his head resting against hers, both of them fast asleep.

Her phone buzzed away, and the picture vanished under another text alert.

_I brought you clothes, too, but you might want a shower before you do any science._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, okay. I have Jane-feels. And Jane-Bucky feels. I mean, ship Jane with all the things, but I started here.


End file.
